Well, it could happen you know. We have about 1and a half million users here. Say each one registers 2 new voters. There’s 3 million new voters right there. Now, imagine that each one of registers 10 new voters? That’s 15 million new voters!
That’s what Dr. Reid, the first African American to be elected to the VA legislature since Reconstruction, calls a “Formidable Force”. We could be that — a Formidable Force. We could rock the election.
The group 90for90 was started to honor Dr. Reid for his work registering voters during the Jim Crow days of poll taxes and literacy tests. A voter registration advocacy movement, their goal was to register 250,000 new voters before this November.
Well, they are just about to hit that mark, so with 7 or so months to go, they are going to try to double it and see a half a million new voters registered. They just might do it too. When they first started, the numbers were trickling in a bit but as time went on those monthly totals grew and grew. The closer we get to the election the more excited people get and the easier is to get them to vote.
So, here’s what I’m thinking, if they can do it we can do it. What does VA have on us? Well, except for one very historic man who is a living breathing example of the civil rights movement and how it marches on. I admit, we don’t have that. Dr. Reid is an incredible inspiration; he has a soft, gentle voice that he tenaciously insists be heard. He uses that voice to push for civil rights for all and to encourage others to use their voices as well.
It is such an honor to know of him and an incredible honor to speak with him. He puts on no “airs”, there is no pretension about him. He wants a better Democracy and he wants others to aspire for a better Democracy as well. If I do ever grow up I want to be just like him.
I’m not him though and none of us here can approach his level of impact. Not by ourselves at least. But together? Oh, together I think we can duplicate some of his efforts. We can register voters and we can do it in mass quantities.
We are all unique individuals who may want to approach registering voters in our own ways. I want to do it in person. I want to set up a table in the waiting room of my local city hospital and register folks with nothing else to do with their time but wait. I want to do it at some of the Dollar Stores in town.
Take a look at how the North Carolina folks are doing it www.dailykos.com/… they are setting up a table at the local Y and registering voters.
I talked to a woman this weekend who loves to go door to door. Hey, whatever floats your boat.
We have a lot of armchair warriors here too. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, there is an argument that you can register more voters by email than by going door to door. You can probably do it faster that's for sure. Send an email blast out to everyone you know asking if they’re registered to vote. (I’ve registered 2 people that way and I have to say, I wasn’t really even trying all that hard.)
If you are one of those Face Books sorts, post a nagging message to all of your followers, ask them to post a picture of themselves registering. And for all you Face Book tech savvy sorts, a lot of states have online registration, click on your state on this map here: www.90for90.org for information. And while you're on Face Book "like" the 90for90 page. Help spread the word.
I don’t know how we’ll keep track of our numbers, we don’t need to know that today, we just need to start registering voters. Keep track of your numbers and we’ll find a way to collate them.
If you’re a member of our DK Fans of 90 for 90 group , now is the time to start writing your diaries about voter registration. tell us what the rules are in your state (or for some of you, your country, we’re interested).
It may seem like we’re a bit behind and that we’re starting late and that's true. In a prefect world we would be registering voters every day. No reason not to jump in now though and I think that because so many have election fever we can do this, we can be a formidable force and register millions of new voters. Any questions? Good then, let’s start. It's you and me, running up the road, running up the hill, registering voters.
Tracy B Ann — everything I write, including, but not limited to, my name, belongs solely to me.